Crisis
by Angelfirenze
Summary: You'll allow us. We won't tell you how to shut us out. You've always wanted us...what's so different now... The Tam family, in extension; post-BDM. River/Jayne. Simon/Kaylee. Mal/Inara. Wash/Zoe aftermath.
1. Prideful

**Prideful**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, a certain part of the Big Damned Movie would have ended with a spectacularly showy landing on Mr. Universe's hangar. Alas...

**Summary:** _You'll allow us. We won't tell you how to shut us out. You've always wanted us...what's so different now..._

**Timeline:** About five years after said BDM, to give everyone room to grow and whatnot.

**Rated T:** for angst and serious talk but no bad language that I can see.

**Pairings:** Established Simon/Kaylee, River/Jayne, very slightly implied Zoe/Wash, etc. Ordinarily, River/Jayne makes my head spin unpleasantly, but it's perfect for this story and, anyway, leave it to writing about him being how I ended up tolerating Jayne in the end...*patently amazed*

**Notes:** Right, this was originally meant to be a oner, but obviously it's just not finished. We all know what happened when they lost. Let's see what happened if they eventually won...

Gabriel never looked at the vidscreens anymore. He was determined to believe that the less attention he paid the whole matter, the better odds that the last five years had never happened.

_You'll turn around and there she'll be..._

Hadn't those been Regan's words to...Gabriel paused to pinch his nose, uncomfortably steeling himself against the chill he remained unused to even months after the heat generators had begun to break down. It had taken them weeks to learn how to start fires, but none knew how to carry one comfortably with them.

Gabriel paused and forced himself to stand, eyes closed, as many other members of the Alliance brushed angrily past him. He wanted to tell them all to wait, to stop and think. Then he laughed piteously to himself. How dare he, fool he, lecture anyone else on their rushing about?

Simon had known -- had _known_ they were throwing River to unknown wolves but, like little children content in the knowledge that they were being watched over, they deluded themselves, he and Regan, into thinking their government with so many like-minded bodies -- all surely united in the benevolent stewardship of everyone around them -- could never mean their little girl harm.

Gabriel shuddered, then, again forcing back the long-held sob that started to gather the moment he'd recognized what this was. Simon had even made a joke by sending it to him during a meeting.

He entertained, momentarily, the memory of River's invitation to attend the Academy. Her excitement, such refreshment to the boredom that had overtaken her at reaching the pinnacle of everything before.

She'd wanted to learn but, more, _to do, to see_.

Gabriel dismissed that atrocious line of non-reasoning for the fallacy it was. In no way could River actually be blamed on the obliviousness that was so of use to them. The Alliance had seen an opportunity and simply utilized it -- it had been Gabriel and his blindness that allowed them to do so. Still, he entertained the comforting excuse that it had been what River had wanted. That was fine. A child's exuberance at the worlds around her is never anything to be squashed.

But Simon had gotten the letters -- and even those had come months later than what was truly decent -- had read the disconnect between his sister and this blithering dervish, this mad little...

_No_, Gabriel shook his head more forcefully and concentrated on putting one foot ahead of the other. River would not, could not be blamed in any way. Neither of them still dared to speak of their children, now out of respect and shame, reverence for the courage he couldn't understand where they'd come by.

Gabriel turned off the crumbling remains of the paved roads in what used to be the heart of the infrastructure. He'd promised Simon he'd read the wave -- the first they'd gotten in more than six years -- in private, not even at home where Alliance beacons detailed their every move. Once upon a time, that had been a comfort but not anymore.

**_You'll allow us. We won't tell you how to shut us out. You've always wanted us...what's so different now..._**

Gabriel began to climb the hill he was coming to, marveling with horror even now how the entire area had once been rife with -- albeit artificial -- life. He has never actually seen grass in his lifetime, but he doesn't think the fine rubble left now should count as a replacement.

Settling heavily in his robes, Gabriel removed his pocket watch and glanced at it before scoffing at himself. The face was scratched and cracked, having fallen in some mishap, and where Gabriel would have once gotten it repaired, there is now nowhere to take it to, as half the shops -- including the watchmaker -- are shuttered. He remembers a time when he looked down upon the outer planets, wondered why they clung to such an obviously backward way of life, things falling apart around them and still they stayed, but wasn't that what they did now? They were no better off than those he'd so disdained, but here they stayed because...well, because.

Delicious irony, Simon might have called it.

The capture brightened, throwing a strange glitter across the sterile, yet barren landscape around him and Gabriel was immediately overwhelmed by the sight of Simon clad in a blue overcoat and cap strangely reminiscent of the ancient captures of wars fought centuries before any of them had been born, his normally clean-shaven cheeks bearded but a gentle, relieved smile on his face.

_Hi, Dad,_ the cheerful voice called out, reverberating slightly in the isolation. _Before you ask, we're here on Persephone. I though - I thought -- _ And here the familiar, stumblingly shy Simon peeks out as he leans down and scratches the side of his head as a tiny fuzzy-blonde haired girl runs past him, followed by line of several others of similar heights and in varying shades.

The last one, the smallest (this one a dark-haired boy) stops to cling to Simon's pant leg before asking 'Uncle Simon' what he's doing and it's all Gabriel can do not to let whatever sound is desperate to escape any mercy.

_I'm sending a wave to my and your mother's father,_ Simon says patiently, his eyes averted to...Gabriel's grandson now beneath his line of sight. _That's part of the reason we came to Persephone in the first place, remember?_

You said Daddy wanted to kick Mr. Badger in his male parts for cheating them a long, long time off but that Uncle Mal won't let him because we gon' have to get paid and ain't fussed as to how to go about doin' it, an unseen, terribly versed little boy's voice sounds and Simon glances downward again, his hand coming to ruffle the child's hair.

_I did,_ Simon agrees as the capture wavers momentarily, his voice not straying from the pleasant tone, his eyes now taking on something of visible affection rather than the artificial pleasantry Gabriel had been subject to. _I've also asked your **pyen juh duh niou fun*** of a father to use something approaching proper English or, at least, Mandarin when speaking to you, but no._

No, the little voice of his grandson echoes and Simon actually laughs then, as though he'd expected nothing of the sort.

Suddenly, though Simon bends out of frame and picks the child up to face Gabriel, who suddenly finds he cannot breathe. The boy in his son's arms has his daughter's eyes, but his dark hair is not precisely the right shade. He's stocky and scowls in a way River never did.

_Say hello to your grandpa, Raven Hoban Cobb,_ Simon encourages and the boy says, _Hello to your grandfather, Raven Hoban Cobb_ very precisely but does not look around at the screen. He only has eyes for Simon who patiently allows Raven to push his hands into Simon's beard and press his face as closely as he can before backing away and jumping down to run off.

"I've missed a lot", Gabriel pauses the wave as he says to himself, aware his voice is quite congested as he brushes away tears.

You have, he imagines Simon will say quite carelessly, his newly (or not) ribald nature showing through slightly in well-earned ridicule. We grew up. Now they're doing it, too. I hear it's this newfangled thing called 'life' or something...

Gabriel cannot laugh at the joke and this false Simon doesn't expect him to. Your mother and I... he starts before remembering again that he's talking to a pre-ordained conversation, one-sided, made for him and without his input or expectation of such.

He's earned it, he reminds himself hatefully as he restarts the screen and begins to listen again to what Simon truly says.

_I wasn't entirely sure the captain -- ah, that's Captain Malcolm Reynolds -- I could explain him to you, but River would do a far better job and, anyway, it took us forever to get on even footing so, really, I don't want to try. Anyway. I wasn't certain the captain would make a return trip to Persephone considering we've only just taken a job there a month ago and it puts us a week off schedule for our _shortcut_ to avoid Jianying -- oh, right -- I should probably tell you about this time on Jiangyin when River and I were kidnapped by snatchers -- _

Gabriel's heart jumps into his throat, but he manages not to drop the capture as Simon's face and voice finally take on a hardened tone. _But that might imply that you cared and if there's anything I found out when trying to rescue _the only family I had_, it was that your silly fantasies of status meant more to you than either of us, dedicated source boxes and medacad placements, be damned._

Simon's face is finally hardened now, his now unfamiliar eyes watching something in the distance before he lifts the capture to obscure the entire noisy background. _ "By the time you and Mother would have come around, River would have been worse than dead. You've seen the evidence now -- I should know, she and I helped put it all out there. No more hiding, Dad. No more assuming, wishing, hoping, crossing fingers. They don't _care_ what's best for you or me or anyone else and they never did."_

Simon pulls the capture away from his face and sighs._ "I tried to convince you I wasn't trying to hurt you or any of our family, but you wouldn't let me. But it's alright, now, Dad."_

Then he smiles again and turns the capture so it lands on a startlingly grown-up River twirling a light brown boy in an over-sized Hawaiian shirt around, both of them barefoot.

_"I've got all the family I need."_

...TBC...


	2. Faithless

**Faithless**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, a certain part of the Big Damned Movie would have ended with a spectacularly showy landing on Mr. Universe's hangar. Alas...

**Summary:** He resigns himself to the question and waits for her to speak again.

**Timeline:** About five years after said BDM, to give everyone room to grow and whatnot.

**Rated T:** for angst and serious talk but no bad language that I can see.

**Pairings:** Established Simon/Kaylee, River/Jayne, very slightly implied Zoe/Wash, etc. Ordinarily, River/Jayne makes my head unpleasantly, but it's perfect for this story and, anyway, leave it to writing about him being how I ended up tolerating Jayne in the end...*patently amazed*

**Notes:** Right, this series was originally meant to be a oner, but obviously the first part just was not finished. We all know what happened when they lost. Let's see what happened if they eventually won...

Gabriel receives a wave from River a month later, completely unexpectedly. He is not at work, but employment has been sporadic for so long now that it no longer phases him. He looks up from his wife placing the capture on his desk to see tears trailing down her cheeks as she exits his study.

All around him, the only current captures he has of his children are bulletins from the Cortex on their whereabouts over those years when he'd tried to pretend they no longer existed, clinging vainly as he was to his position at the time.

He remembers stories from ancient civilizations that covered the mirrors and captures of dead loved ones with cloth, that tore their clothes in their grief. That this culture is not actually dead is nothing he knows. The Alliance outlaws and dismisses religion as fairy tales concerned with the fallacy of the small conquering the mighty on the slightest of odds.

That they're obviously not fairy tales now (if they ever were) is nothing Gabriel has been able to contemplate for long without crying at his hubris, his ignorance.

Now he forces himself to meet her unseeing eyes and is floored by the darkness, wisdom, and...pain he sees in them replacing the light that suffused them in all his memories.

_Hi, Daddy,_ she says quietly, and her face is blank but her eyes still shine with malice he's never been privy to before now. _You've long missed me._

Gabriel hears a whimpering noise and it's a moment before he realizes he made it. She doesn't say anything about returning the feeling and it sits on his chest like a set of punishing rocks. His fingers come up and slide across her face, as though if he concentrated enough he could touch her, reach far enough he could give her all the hugs he should have and more.

But he fails like he did then and always will now.

River looks away and a fidgety quickness comes over her. Those passing through the capture, others he doesn't know, don't seem phased by it, but he wonders how long she has been this way.

He resigns himself to the question and waits for her to speak again.

_I waited. Simon and I waited for...so...so long and you never came. I never thought Mother would, but you, Daddy...I used to think you would._

Gabriel wants to close his eyes, but cannot. He forces himself to hear this list of sins. They are his to bear and no one else's.

River points to a tiny circular scar the middle of her forehead and doesn't blink. _They pulled my soul out right here. It was months before Miranda put it all back._

Gabriel shudders, remembering the sudden broadcast over the Cortex that had brought his and everyone else's (there he was, thinking of only the Alliance as the only universe worth considering when whole lives went on without his knowledge or input. This now included those of his children) world to a standstill.

_But it's alright now, Daddy. I'm out here in the Black, it's quiet, there's love and..._

River trails away and turns the capture to face what seems to be a small window. There are scatterings of stars and planets as far as his eyes can see and Gabriel understands instantly that his little girl will never be coming home and her brother will be there to follow her wherever those streaks of light take her.

River turns the capture back on herself and she's smiling now and he's floored because he hadn't realized just how much he'd missed _this_, her happiness. Simon's was beautiful, but River's was breathtaking to behold. He realizes he's been waiting, too, but it's his own fault so he can blame no one but himself.

The capture slides downward and Gabriel suddenly registers the concavity of River's belly.

"You're pregnant," Gabriel whispers to no one and when the capture comes back to River's face she's crying now.

_Gonna be a little sister for a big brother. Other cousin. More little feet._

Behind her a gruff voice sounds and a man with large arms and a gun slung over his back tosses something heavy aside and comes to wrap those arms around River's belly and Gabriel wants to tell him to stay the hell away from his daughter but he has no right.

_You almost got shot,_ River says firmly by way of hello as she looks up at the man towering above her. He is very obviously his grandson, Raven's father.

_Yeah, well, that's what happens when the captain decides that 'cause you're pregnant, no jobs for you -- we __all_ almost get shot. But Mal damned well likes a fight so -- 

_Ain't no one in the 'verse can stop me,_ River smiles, turning and kissing the large man's beard. He chuckles and tips his forehead toward hers.

_I...tried once..._

River answers this with a flippant expression. _And I told you I'd kill you with my brain. Tit for tat. No one ever accused you of being smart -- _

River smiles at an unseen expression the big man makes. _But you learned better. You're a good man now. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone -- 'specially not Simon._

_...Promise?_ the big man whispers and Gabriel can barely hear it.

River smiles and the big man puts his hands on her belly. _Little sister for our little boy to be a big brother. Protector and rival._

_Now, River, I've heard you talk normal before...what's this 'bout being pregnant makes ya all moon-brained?_

But River simply rolls her eyes and reaches up to give him another kiss. _Soon, soon..._

The big man makes an exasperated noise when another woman suddenly enters the picture and throws her arms around each his daughter and...son-in-law?

_Well, iffen you think River's all moon-brained, then it's your fault for makin' her that way, ain't it, Jayne? And not even once, but twice._

_Well, hell, fine then -- won't happen no more..._

_Liar,_ both River and the other woman interrupt and the capture turns off.

Gabriel blinks, feeling bereft at the abrupt end to this impromptu family reunion. Quite unexpectedly, he's thrown back in time to the exact moment he'd realized Simon wasn't coming back from that blackout zone.

He'd given Simon the ultimatum, thinking it was far too high a price to afford -- his home, his future -- but, in reality, it had been Gabriel who'd thrown everything away.

That night, he dreams of cutting out his heart and tongue, hefting them on a platter, and watching them turn their backs. He awakens in tears and cannot tell his wife what is wrong.

After all, it's all his fault.

FIN


	3. Recompense

**Recompense**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, a certain part of the Big Damned Movie would have ended with a spectacularly showy landing on Mr. Universe's hangar. Alas...

**Summary:** He hated being stuck like this, trapped. He couldn't imagine what the doc's moon-brained little psycho of a sister had felt, going through this every day for three years or whatever long. He'd've gone off his axle, too, he...

**Notes:** Apparently, the Crisis series isn't over yet because I started thinking about Jayne's time in the hangar after 'Ariel' and then 'Trash', after that and this sort of took shape, so it's a part three of sorts...

I can't tell you what a struggle it has been not to let the prose, itself, slip into Janye's way of speaking. *sighs very heavily*

**Pairings:** pre-Simon/Kaylee, pre-River/Jayne, pre-Mal/Inara, Zoe/Wash;

Jayne sat back and stared at the bay door that had just been closed, exhaling abruptly against his own will. Scowling, he gingerly put a hand to the knot on his forehead, now joined by a second where Mal had clocked him with whatever that had been.

He stared at the webbing against the other wall, wondering if he'd have to make himself a bed out of it or if Mal was going to let him out anytime soon. He kicked at a box with his toe, clasping his hands and trying to forget the doctor's gratitude toward him for what he thought was bravery and such. No damned thing, Jayne knew, running a hand over his head now.

He couldn't stop fidgeting. He hated being stuck like this, trapped. He couldn't imagine what the doc's moon-brained little psycho of a sister had felt, going through this every day for three years or whatever long. He'd've gone off his axle, too, he...

Jayne froze, blinking. Why did he care what that little brat had gone through, she'd stabbed him in the chest, after all. Even said he looked better that way. Then again, hadn't he told that Alliance jackass that not all of her had to be anywhere for him to...

Jayne sighed and gave his head a good shake. Now who was the one talkin' all crazy? It was bad enough everybody acted like it was perfectly fine for -- her to go wandering all over the ship, picking up knives and cutting all over people. It was bad enough the captain had taken his own shine to both these crazy 'fugees and said they were just as part of the crew as him or Kaylee or 'Nara.

Jayne frowned further, staring down at the ground. He remembered the slight touch of her tiny body alongside his as they were all lined up, that Alliance brass bastard who'd double-crossed _him_ getting all in the doctor's face, the doctor showing more manhood in thirty seconds than he'd done practically all year -- _after_ running over and keeping that other idiot from killing some poor fool.

He wondered what she'd been like when she'd been okay. The doc said she'd been a gift -- still was, least to him. Jayne couldn't imagine being so crazy about his own sister -- hell, he'd named his gun after her, hadn't he? That alone said she was a pain in the ass. The doc was the big brother, it was his job to scare her, tease her, ignore her.

Doc did not one.

The only one on the ship 'showed more care for her, in a family kind of way, might be the captain and that he couldn't understand at all. He knew the captain didn't care about money, only just to keep the ship flying and not all falling apart. Even with 'Nara, whom he fought with on a damned near daily basis, he was willing to get all stabbed up and cut on just because some rich asswipe the doctor could have been if he cared less had called her what Mal called her practically once a week.

But he'd meant it, that bastard, and Mal'd known it. Jayne didn't know what he meant by all the things he said 'bout River, but he couldn't help but remember the sound of her voice as she'd talked about...about greed.

Something in him had known she was talking about him and it scared him. It scared him now. Not that she'd known who he was and what he was about, he'd never hidden that and didn't care to.

It was that she was disappointed in him because she'd always known he'd be the one who'd do the damned thing he did. Hell, he would bet money that was why she'd cut him in the first place.

Did that mean she could see all in the future, or just tell things about people? Did it matter when she'd been damned right?

He almost hated her now, Jayne did, as he got to his feet and started untying the mesh when it became clear the captain wasn't going to let him out to go back to his bunk anytime soon. When he was done making his hammock, he climbed into it, forcing himself to lie with his head facing the bay door, figuring he deserved the fear it gave him.

He turned back over and started violently, swearing he saw her wide dark eyes, with their haunt and their pain staring through the porthole, but it was just the com-link Mal had left there hours ago.

Jayne gritted his teeth and settled into the hammock, not even bothering to find something for a blanket. He knew there wasn't one and if there had been, Mal had taken it before he'd come to. So, really, who wasn't a man now? He was on a punishment, like the selfish little boy he'd acted and he knew he deserved it.

After all, how could he do such a thing?

...TBC...


	4. Radical

**Radical**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, a certain part of the Big Damned Movie would have ended with a spectacularly showy landing on Mr. Universe's hangar. Alas...

**Summary:** She was killing him with her brain, just like she said she would.

**Notes:** Apparently, the Crisis series isn't over yet because like I said before, I'm thinking about Jayne's time in the hangar after 'Ariel' and then 'Trash', after that and this sort of took shape, so it's a part four of sorts...it's taken awhile, but this ship wants to fly.

**Pairings:** pre-Simon/Kaylee, explicit River/Jayne, pre-Mal/Inara, Zoe/Wash;

**Warnings:** Mild Dom!River, Sub!Jayne;

Radical

The first time they had each other, it took a long time for him to figure out that they'd both wanted it and that he shouldn't be shot like a dog. Because he certainly had felt he should be. Except that that was only when he was able to concentrate because it was so damned hard to think with her movin' and gyratin' all on top of him and not once did she make a sound, not one damned time did she move him or hurt his neck.

Her eyes stayed locked on his like some kind of homin' beacon, explosions behind his eyes showin' 'im colors he'd never known before. She was killing him with her brain, just like she said she would. According to him, when she'd said that, he'd wanted nothing more than to get up and run back to his bunk, lock the door and hide in his bed with Vera cocked and ready. But then she'd come in the infirmary she hated so much, but her brother was so fond of ("We've got the same troubles...") and he didn't know the word 'dichotomy', but it would have fit so well just then.

When she said it - "Dichotomy" - he thought she was going to start cuttin' on him like them ruttin' mad men at that _hwun dan_-filled Academy place. But then she stepped upward, as if she was floatin' on air, and sat astride him, her head turning this way and that to look at him like...he wasn't one to know at all because she was sat right across him _there_ and suddenly everything felt warm and she was reaching forward to stroke his face, a calmness she'd never yet shown on hers as she smiled and whispered, "This isn't a bathtub, no swimming pool - no lake...so why are we so wet?"

Jayne gulped as well as he could, unable to turn away, but wishing so much that he wasn't gettin' so hard he couldn't damned well think straight. She was right, she _was_ wet and it was startin' to soak through the shorts she wore under her dresses for whenever she felt like flippin' around like a damned...Jayne's mouth went slack as he watched her eyes close and then she reached between them and started doin' things with her fingers that made her moan quietly, deep down in her throat, and he felt like he was going to explode if he couldn't do something about this ache inside him soon.

But she had already shown him she was in control and damn it if he didn't _like_ it. River had a tiny bit of a smile on her face as she started to move somehow and her shorts slid down to her ankle and onto the floor and then she was naked on top of him under that dress, but then he could feel his pants all undone and himself slowly comin' free, wet, just like she said as she began to slide against him, the sensation like a million little stars marching back and forth in front of his brain out of hers, tryin' to tell him something he just couldn't understand.

"This...wr..." he started to try to say, but she shushed him, that smile back on her face as she moved like something out of one of the stories - the genie from that lamp.

Gently, she leaned forward and licked his lip and he couldn't think anymore, watching and couldn't look away as she moved on him and moved until finally her eyes slid shut and her mouth fell open in one perfect 'O' as she shuddered against him as if they was Wash in the cockpit tryin' to land without killin' them all.

He felt the pressure inside him get to be as if his head was gonna explode and then the front of her dress that had draped over him darkened as he came in waves, his seed covering her all down her chest even as she let her nails dig into his arms, leaving her marks on him.

She hopped off him, landing like a cat except on two legs, and then cleaned and scrubbed and changed and then was gone. She had slowly poured water on him to absorb the extra. But she was gone, quietly as she arrived.

And Jayne was left blinking with a hole in the pit of his stomach that he didn't know what to do with. He didn't then know it was love.

Later on, when Simon finally let him up, the doctor just assumed that River had taken her pound of flesh from Jayne and just about smirked as he offered to clean the marks her nails had left.

Jayne refused, instead secretly counting the days until they'd healed all themselves, lining them up against the day when she stood by his ear and breathed into him as she lay his hands on her belly and fear like no other had gripped him, but she'd shushed him and kissed his cheek.

"Dichotomy," she'd repeated, the happy gush in her voice flowing into his heart and suddenly he didn't care of her brother or the captain comin' after him with an ax or a sword or whatever. He and Vera'd be ready for them. She was going to be his now.

Just like he was already hers.

**END**


	5. Footsteps

**Footsteps**  
_By Angelfirenze_

**Disclaimer:** If they were mine, a certain part of the Big Damned Movie would have ended with a spectacularly showy landing on Mr. Universe's hangar. Alas...

**Summary:** It honestly doesn't matter at this point, anyway.

**Notes:** Okay, obviously, this series is going to be out of order. It demands and I must obey for fear of writer's block.

**Pairings:** Simon/Kaylee, River/Jayne - but gen, really, for this particular chapter;

Footsteps

The first time Gabriel gets up the courage to try to contact his children, himself, it's been another six months. River, he realizes, has likely given birth once more at this point (the thought of missing not one but both of his grandchildrens' births fills him with a shame he didn't think he could feel even now) and their family is likely busy with the new child or children.

Gabriel shudders and realizes, then, that even if he wanted to send a wave to either of his children...or their family...he has no idea where they are. The only thing he's ever known was that they'd been on a Firefly-class ship called Serenity for over seven years. It was only with Simon and River's own waves that he ever saw the faces of anyone they were with or heard any names. His son-in-law's name is apparently some masculine form of 'Jane', which Gabriel finds perplexing, but it isn't as if he can do anything about it.

It honestly doesn't matter at this point, anyway.

Gabriel knows nothing about whether or not Simon has gotten married or had any children of his own - he spent more time with Simon here at home...home. Was it ever? But he's spent more time with Simon in the long run and now finds he knows slightly more about River, which isn't very much at all.

He remembers, for the thousandth time, that Blackout zone and Simon's efforts to contact River for all those years. He remembers how fruitless his son had felt his efforts to be for so long. He wonders now how Simon did it at all. Gabriel cannot simply traipse off to clandestine meetings with anyone to get information on his children. He wouldn't even know where to start.

Ignorance. He, father of two geniuses, never knew himself to be so ignorant.

So it's a complete surprise when, entirely out of nowhere, a man in brown calls him up on a wave in his office. Gabriel blinks and shrinks back slightly into his chair as the man gets himself a good look at Gabriel and then chuckles ruefully.

"Well. I have to say - uh, well, hell, I don't know iffen you got a title like the esteemed doctor here, but well, _Tam_, this is just...well, all kinds of interestin'. River calls up your coordinates and all, just looks me in the eye like, 'This's somethin' you gotta do. I would, but I'm busy. Critters an' all.' She's my co-pilot, you know, our River."

Gabriel blinks again and suddenly realizes this must be Captain Malcolm Reynolds - commander, as it were, of the ship his children have called home and will for as long as they can. Then Captain Reynolds' final words catch up with him.

_'Our River'._

Gabriel struggles not to object or even frown. He had this coming, he damned well knows.

"I-I'm..."

But the words peter out. What could Gabriel say to this man to describe himself? The only words he can think of are 'fool', 'ass', the Mandarin for each...

Gabriel falls silent.

But the captain's voice and face both harden, then, "Yeah, I know who you are. The doc pulls bullets and _go se_ outta me all the time. I better know who you are iffen I want to curse you and not him with all that pain. 'Course, he does dope me half the time, so there's that kind of mercy."

The captain's face takes on a careless sort of darkness, "Somethin' I reckon you wouldn't know a damned thing about."

Gabriel can't stop himself from flinching, nor wincing when the captain's mocking chuckle flutters over him. He curses for a while in Mandarin, taking a spin in the chair he sits in, surrounded by an odd array of plastic dinosaurs, before leaning on the console that seemingly separates them so closely instead of likely millions of miles.

Gabriel continuously wants to invoke a god, but has no idea which one to choose or even why.

"Listen," Captain Reynolds says quietly, in an even more hardened tone and Gabriel forces himself not to react again. "I'm doin' this only -_only_ because River asked me to. Seems to think you should meet your grandkids. But I sure as hell ain't gonna make it easy on you. And I know damned well that you'll be meetin' Jayne and Vera when you get here - _if_ you get here..."

But then the captain pauses in his threats and stares down at the console before looking directly into what he might or might not know are Gabriel's eyes, "But I'll do it 'cause she asked and if anything's been my good luck, it's my little albatross. You gave her and Simon away, both. Time to play catch up, you _zázhÒng_. Have fun."

The screen goes black, then, and Gabriel realizes he only said one word. He has every belief the captain meant it to go this way.

Slowly, quietly, Gabriel leaves his office and begins to pack. The wave will be returned eventually and Gabriel wants to be ready.

It's the only chance he has, he won't waste it again.

END

Translation:

_go se - shit.  
zázhÒng - son of a bitch._


End file.
